


Whitefire

by ac_123



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blind Character, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Magic, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-13 20:44:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11768028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ac_123/pseuds/ac_123
Summary: Team Voltron travel out to a deserted planet after receiving a garbled distress call from a downed ship.  When they get there, though, the ship is in ruins and the only remaining person is a woman in a suspended state of sleep.  They take her back the Castle to heal her and wait for her to wake up.  When she finally does, they are stunned and confused when she claims to be Princess Allura of Arus, pilot of the Blue Lion and member of the Voltron Force.  Can she really be who she says she is?





	Whitefire

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Voltron Gen Big Bang with gorgeous art made by the talented and patient [kingsdoodles](http://kingsdoodles.tumblr.com/). Click her name to see more of her stuff.
> 
> Behold my ambitious garbage fire.

_A chill wind always blew up from the Bay. It was the kind of wind that settled in your bones like dust and clung like briers to your clothes, but tonight’s was particularly bitter. It brought a thick fog that hung low to the ground, obscuring grass and sand and transforming the black, placid ocean into the clouds above a roiling storm. Even the backyard lights couldn’t break through the blanket._

_The sky, however, was clear and vast and the stars burned brighter than they had all summer. Shiro begged Dad to take the telescope out, begged Mom to come sit outside with him. He wanted to hear the stories about the stars: the family that found immortality dancing around the North Star; the fallen warrior turned to ecstatic, galloping stars by the moon’s grief; the faith and wit of a princess who lead her heroes to victory._

_They relented after dinner. Dad went to the garage. Mom pulled out a jacket for him. Shiro, meanwhile, clamored up to his room and tripped on his bedroom carpet on his way to his star atlas. The telescope was already set up and pointed to the Easter sky when Shiro ran outside — away from the city and where the fog was thinnest. He held the atlas tightly to his chest, worried about the crisp, dewey grass that bit at his thick soles, and bent over to look through the lens. He swiped his hair behind his ear. He adjusted the lens. He pivoted the optical tube to the left, then to the right. His enthusiasm hardened into a worrying knot that turned and turned in his stomach. He stepped away and opened an atlas._

_He muttered, “This isn’t right.”_

_The warmth of another person alerted Shiro to a new presence half a moment before they spoke. “What’s wrong?”_

_Shiro looked up. Keith was staring at the stars, eyebrows pulled low with determination. He was wearing a Galaxy Garrison officer uniform and stood with his arms stiffly hanging by his sides, hands open and relaxed._

_“These constellations aren’t right,” Shiro said as he flipped through the star maps. “I don’t know where they came from or why they’re here, but these are nothing like what’s supposed to be in the sky right now.”_

_His eyes scanned the diagrams as he flipped through the pages. Plotting lines, dots, text, the seams and edges of the pages themselves — they blurred until there was nothing left. Navy black ink bled from the spine and disappeared into the endless gray sea beneath him. Shiro’s head felt thick. He swayed from side to side. His hand came up to cradle his forehead while the sharp chill of clawed fingers skimmed over the tender skin around his ankles. He blinked. His eyes refocused long enough to recognize that the book in his hands was blank._

_“There’s something coming,” Keith said._

_Shiro looked up at him. “What?”_

_Keith didn’t respond. His focus was firmly set on the darkest patch of sky just outside of the reach of city lights. The part of the sky where no stars were shining._

_“What’s coming?” Shiro asked again. The thickness in his head was weighing him down. His eyelids drooped, narrowing his vision and dimming the world. The ground gave way under his weight. He pulled his knees up, tried to free his feet from viscous dirt and succeeded in sinking faster. He reached out to Keith, but he was just far enough away for his fingertips to miss the relaxed blade of Keith’s hand. He tried to keep his eyes open, but the ground was at his waist and the fog was covering his nose and the weight in his head was pulling him deeper and deeper into sleep._

_“Keith,” he gasped just before the world swallowed him._

~~~

The low thrum of the Castle’s engines trembled through Shiro’s sheets and rattled the bones in his chest. A tan arm was draped over his waist and warm puffs of breath wafted around his left shoulder. Silicone fingers ran absently over downy hair and tan skin, followed the trail up Lance’s bare shoulder. He carefully watched Lance’s face, half-hidden by a pillow, for signs that he was waking up. His fake knuckles curled and glided back down the tawny arm to the thin wrist at the end. He gently lifted it and slipped out from underneath it, laying it down on the mattress like it was precious glass.

Lance’s eyebrow twitched. Shiro held his breath as Lance hummed and stretched out, hand reaching out for the warmth Shiro had left behind. Lance settled down with a smile and a please sigh. Shiro breathed out, the ball in his chest sticking firm to his ribs.

Shiro put his clothes back on and checked on Lance again before leaving his room. With the Castle on its night cycle, only the phantasmal blue glow of the footlights, lit his way as he drifted down the hall. His footsteps didn’t echo. His breath was quieter than the living hum of engines and electricity and the asynchronous breaths of his friends. He felt like a ghost out of time; like a figment escaped from the astral plane, bodiless, ever-present. He closed his eyes and swore he could feel the drool dripping down Hunk’s chin and the heat of the sleeping laptop on Pidge’s lap. He could see the way Coran’s mustache fluttered as he snored and how Keith curled in on himself and Allura’s nightmares of burning flowers.

He couldn’t though. He was here. He had to keep reminding himself of that.

When he opened his eyes, he was in the Black Lion’s hangar. When he looked up, he saw her queenly face gazing at the wall. He touched her warm paw and sought out the purr that had held him together. She answered with a phantom nudge. _No,_ she urged, _you stay._

His fingers curled into his palm. He searched her face once again, desperate to interpret more from the impassive stare, and left disappointed.

When he returned to his room it was cold and Lance was gone.

~~~

“Good morning Shiro,” Coran greeted as he served breakfast from a big silver bowl. “Glad to see you up this morning. Though, if I’m being quite honest, it’s good to see you up any morning after your little scare.”

“Thanks,” Shiro said with a polite smile. The steaming goop Coran was serving smelled like boiled brussel sprouts and looked like a hairball. Shiro pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth and held his breath before reaching for a spork. Keith lumbered into the dining room, dragging Coran’s attention away from Shiro just as he was starting to feel like passing out. Keith looked worse for wear — bleary-eyed and pale — but he jerked into a straighter posture when he saw Shiro.

“Good morning,” Coran sang enthusiastically. He turned his back on Shiro and held the bowl out. Shiro took the opportunity to silently sneak his plate of gruel back in and return to his chair. He caught Keith’s stare and lifted a finger to his lips.

Keith responded with a warm and grateful smile. “Hey,” he grunted. He sat down next to Shiro. “What’s for breakfast.”

“We have a veritable feast of rejuvenating, vitamin-filled, protein-like super foods that I prepared using that tried and tested traditional Earth cooking method called boiling,” Coran said proudly. He hefted the bowl higher in his arm and paused, looking at the gray goop closely.

“Sounds…uh…healthy?” Keith said hesitantly.

Coran perked up. “Oh, it is,” he said. He pointed a finger at Keith and said, “Hunk did an analysis of this substance we had in the pantry and said that it was similar to that soy protein you have back on Earth. I thought it would be a nice reminder of home after such a tiring adventure.”

“So you’re giving us boiled soy?” Keith asked.

“Yes, isn’t that what I just said?” Coran asked.

Shiro and Keith looked at each other. Shiro smiled kindly at Coran and said gently, “Well, you see, soy is the kind of food that soaks up the flavors it’s cooked with rather than provide its own.”

“I see,” Coran said. He stirred the goop and scooped out a hefty spoonful — Shiro thought he could see the spoon’s stem bend under its weight — and delivered it back to Shiro’s plate. Then he did it again. “Regardless, it’s imperative that all paladins eat their soy-like breakfast before attending to other duties.” Coran stepped between Shiro and Keith and gave him one drastically smaller spoonful.

Shirp grimaced at his plate. He picked his spork back up and pushed the goop around. It had the thickness of dry, microwaved oatmeal and wiggled like jello. The smell was worse than before somehow, leaving him dizzy and sightless in a whiteout. He imagined his guts churning this thick, steaming, thready substance, but the gravity of the room he was in was holding him down and numbing him to his core. His felt his eyes cross and his eyelids fall shut. The stifling comfort drew him deeper in, away from the body that pushed its food around with absent distaste.

A shushing sound echoed from the void, growing bolder as it floated closer. It snaked its way through the dense air, cherry-picking a thunderous note that pealed in the shape of a kiss. It was when only when he recognized this that the shape, Robin’s egg blue and speckled with stars, cooed to him and he recognized the sound for what it was: “Shiro.”

He breathed in deeply. Now, he felt his stomach’s squirming discomfort. Now, he saw the whole room in faded blues and silvers. Now, he heard Keith’s soft voice trickling under the flood of Hunk’s questions and criticisms.

“You don’t just boil protein substitutes,” Hunk yelled. “Plant proteins don’t have nearly the same amounts of amino acids as animal proteins, which means they don’t promote muscle growth and, if you haven’t noticed, break down into literal paste.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Coran said, “but this is a healthy meal designed to reinvigorate the body and the mind. It is critical that you all are of sound body and mind.”

“Oh, so you decided to feed us _glue_ ,” Hunk asked, aghast.

“You okay, Shiro?” Keith asked.

Shiro nodded. “Yeah,” he confirmed weakly. “Just…”

The door opened, bringing his and Keith’s attention to Lance. Glowing, warm, and fully dressed with his signature thoughtless smile. A flush of memories — hands dancing in his hair, a mouth moving over his, a body bucking in his lap — rushed through Shiro, lighting him on fire and setting him on edge. He looked away: at the goop, at his fingertips, at the reflection of the lights on the table, before giving up and pushing his plate away.

“I’m not hungry right now,” he finished.

Shiro stood up, ignoring the glimpse of Keith’s concern he caught from the corner of his eye. Lance was motionless as Shiro approached, hands pushed deep in his pockets and shoulders pushed back. He was nearly casual, but the angle was off. His arms bent back too much which pushed his chest out too far which made him look like he was leaning away from Shiro.

“Hey,” Lance squeaked out. He coughed as Shiro passed him by and tried again with a more assured-sounding, “Morning.”

Shiro tried to give him a calm and steady smile, but the weak part of him, the one that gave in to a tempting smile and the anchoring friction of fingers sliding between his, tried to pull his chin down and away. It took all of his strength to fight that instinct, to look at Lance and say, “Good morning,” before leaving.

He took a deep breath, but it was harder this time. There was a pressure between his lungs like fluid was pushing them away from each other. He stopped in the hall and closed his eyes. Without prompt or warning, his mind reconstructed the previous night, from the first shock of fingertips that held him firm in his body to balmy breath on his arm. He felt Lance’s touch play across his hands. He saw the graceless fog in Lance’s eyes as Shiro climbed over him in bed. He heard the babbling stream of nonsense as Lance rode himself out in Shiro’s lap.

The tactility of the memories was unnerving. How could his shiftless mind, which strayed so easily, be recalled by the insinuation of Lance? Lance. Of all people. He was a bowling force of kinetics barely held together by a fragile spring long; a breath in the wrong direction and he let loose — emotion and movement, color and light — on the closest target. Last night it happened to be Shiro, who consumed the attention like a starving man. Whose body felt thin and inconsequential without a constant reminder that he was, in fact, in the real world and not stranded in the astral void just beyond the Black Lion’s mind.

He wasn’t going to let that happen again. He had to learn how to remain in himself without anyone else’s intervention. His friends had enough to worry about, he wasn’t going to burden them with his problems.

_You don’t need to do this alone,_ said a voice he didn’t recognize. _He could be what you need._

Shiro opened his eyes to find himself lying on the floor of his room. Panic coalesced in his throat. When did he get back? He pulled at the collar of his vest. His breath came in little bursts through clenched teeth. He ripped his vest off and threw it across the room, pawing at his throat when he realized that that didn’t solve the problem. His skin was crawling over his muscles. His tongue was too big for his mouth. His knees were locked together. The veins in his neck were swelling, closing off his airways in favor of bringing his heart directly into his ears.

_Where are you?_ , the voice asked.

Shiro gasped, “In my room.”

_And who are you?_ , the voice asked.

Shiro licked his lips. Darkness was creeping in from the sides of his vision and the ceiling was fading away. He was going to pass out. “I’m…Shiro.”

_Where are you?_ , the voice asked again.

He pressed his lips together. His lungs burned. The integrity of his throat was failing.

_Where are you?_ , the voice asked more earnestly.

He breathed shallowly through his nose. “I’m in my room.”

_Who are you?_

“Shiro.”

_Where are you?_

“My room.”

_Open your eyes, Shiro._

Shiro pried his eyes open. The lights were set to day mode. His bed was made with the sheets pressed into straight edges, just like he had left it. He opened his mouth and breathed in slowly, each breath coming in and out with a wheeze. His lungs ballooned and deflated, ballooned and deflated, each time working his throat back open, giving him more room to breathe. He lifted his arms and crossed them above his head, spreading his elbows out as wide as they could reach and lifting his chest off of the ground. The panic was uncoiling, finally, but tendrils still knotted around his vocal chords.

He was breathing evenly and he regained most of his senses when Allura’s command rang out over the intercom: _”Paladins, get to the bridge immediately.”_

~~~

For once, Shiro was the last to reach the bridge. The rest of the team was there — Coran at the hub, Allura at her command station, and the other Paladins standing anxiously around the door. They all turned to look at Shiro when he walked in. He steeled himself against their concerned looks and strode up to Allura, taking in the morbid scene surrounding them. The walls around them displayed the exhausted, broken remains of planets. Entire bodies were split in two, exposing rotten cores frozen over from exposure to empty, unkind space. The Castle found the one clear path through the graveyard and weaved slowly around the glacial, rocky chunks, heading to a single whole planetet in the middle of the carnage.

Shiro stopped only a foot away from her. “What’s the situation, Princess?” he asked, voice and gaze steady.

Allura’s neon eyes scanned him before she gestured to Coran. A light blue circle with a spinning arrow on top appeared around the planetet. “We’ve received what we believe to be a distress signal from a nearby dwarf planet,” she explained.

“Believe to be?” Shiro repeated.

With a graceful flick of her wrist, Allura blew up the planet so that its pitted, brown surface was the only thing on the window-screens. “The signal is faint,” she explained. “We’re not even sure what its origin is. All we can tell is that it’s being emitted from somewhere on this planet.”

“Yes,” Coran said. “The signal’s origin is exceptionally well-hidden. The Castle can’t determine whether it’s mechanical, natural, or an unknown form of energy.”

“How can that be possible?” Keith asked. “Everything around here is long dead.”

“That’s what you’re going to find out,” Allura said. She turned around to face the Paladins. “We’re currently at the very edge of the Galra empire. Many of Zarkon’s men abandoned the frontier after his defeat, but there might still be survivors of the initial invasion living out here. We should extend them the help they deserve.”

“Agreed,” Shiro said. He turned to face his teammates, eyes skipping from face to face. “Red and Green should be able to best maneuver through the debris field. Keith, I’m with you in Red. Lance, Hunk, you’re with Pidge. Everyone, suit up.”

Ten minutes later the team had donned their gear and were preparing for take-offs in the lions. All the while, Shiro couldn’t shake the feeling of eight eyes following his every move as he fastened his belt, fixed his gauntlets to his arms, and slid his helmet into place. He caught Hunk and Pidge, the latter being more subtle than the former, staring at him as he followed Keith to Red. He chanced a quick look at Lance, who had been uncharacteristically quiet since their mission briefing, and found him diligently keeping his head down and his eyes purposefully pointed away from him.

For half a breath, Shiro wondered if there would be enough time to pull him aside and talk to him about what happened. Could they be discreet enough? In a split second, Lance’s eyes were focused on him, the force of them — their sweet and plying glitter strong enough to shine through their foggy visors — stole the breath from Shiro’s chest.

He turned away. “Let’s head out.”

Later, he promised himself. They would talk later.

~~~

Flying in the lions was never this silent. The lions themselves made a number of soft mechanical and semi-organic sounds: whirring, clicking, beeping, humming, and a very, very subtle _thrrsssh_ that Shiro had no other word to describe. Then there was everyone’s chatter. Updates from the Castleship overlapped with Shiro giving orders was undercut by Lance’s taunting which prompted Keith’s stoic response resulting in Hunk’s jolly support which covered Pidge’s irritated mumbling. Open communications meant everyone heard everything.

He thought that there was something wrong with the communications — he was ready to ask Pidge about their progress — when Keith asked, “Did something happen last night?”

“What?” Shiro asked. It felt like his diaphragm was lowering onto his stomach. How soundproof were solid metal walls? He school his appearance to what he hoped was tight, stern, and authoritative. “Nothing happened after the welcome party. What makes you ask?”

Keith’s helmet made it difficult to see much beyond the side of his face. Shiro had to make his best guess as to what he was thinking.

Keith shrugged. “I went to get something to drink late last night and you were wandering around. I tried getting your attention but…” His voice trailed off, gentle and apprehensive. His helmet tilted forward, as if it was slipping down his forehead.

Shiro swallowed. “I must’ve been sleepwalking,” he said. His answer sounded weak and unconvincing, underpinned by the hesitance and insincerity in his voice.

“You didn’t do that before—,” Keith said.

“I’m doing a lot of things I didn’t do before,” Shiro snapped.

He saw the way Keith’s hands twisted around the handles and how his knuckles became more pronounced. He didn’t respond at first. He turned away, taking away the sliver of visibility his helmet allowed. Shiro felt weighed down with nausea. His mind churned away at all of the other ways he could have answered that question and swallowed as he swept them all away. There was no going back.

Suddenly, hurtling down from the upper right, the Green Lion crossed in front of the Red Lion. Keith pulled to the right, barely avoiding the Green Lion and managing to guide them toward a wedge of dead planet twice the size of the Castle. Shiro braced himself on the back of Keith’s chair and the side of the Lion He grit his teeth, closed his eyes, and planted his feet as Keith pulled back on the controls. The force of their turn hit Shiro in the chest, throwing him to the back of the Lion. He braced himself, disoriented and off-balance and expecting a hard stop from his back crashing into the wall. He only skidded back a few feet, though, before the cabin evened out and they were flying smoothly again.

“That was close,” Shiro said with relief.

“Hold on!” Keith yelled.

Shiro opened his eyes. He was three feet behind Keith and himself; his body was braced against the Lion as Keith maneuvered them into a left-leaning drift, aiming the Lion’s paws for the wedge’s walls. They hit the surface of the object with a jerk — Keith and his body jolted forward, but Shiro didn’t feel anything — and the view screen was obscured by a swirling cloud of gray-brown dirt and debris. Half a breath after they touched, Red was lifting off again, throwing them up and back and pushing the wedge out of the way and clearing their path. Shiro saw his hands let go of the chair and his knees buckle.

“No!” he shouted. He reached out and his hand was his again, reaffirming and tight on the back of Keith’s chair. His breath was erratic and shallow. His heart was wild, fluttering like a wounded bird. His knees and ankles felt brittle. They shook, but they were his. He was here.

When they were out of the dust and flying straight again, Keith sighed. “That was close,” he said.

Shiro waited until his breathing and knees were no longer shaking before he activated his helmet’s comm unit. “Lance! Hunk, Pidge, are you okay?”

“Yes!” they all shouted simultaneously.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Nothing!” Hunk answered immediately.

“You nearly hit us,” Keith said, frustrated.

“What, uh, what Hunk meant to say was…” Lance stuttered.

“Was that one of these giant rocks swiftly changed course and nearly hit us,” Pidge finished.

“But we dived out of the way!” Lance added.

“Yeah,” Hunk said quietly. “That’s totally what I meant to say because that is one hundred percent what happened.”

Shiro searched the view screen for the Green Lion. It was calmly flying beneath them like it hadn’t nearly caused both Lions to run into a drifting space rock. He thought about opening a visual line of communication with the other Lion, to take a look into the cockpit to ensure that they were all okay, but he decided against it. “Is anyone hurt?” he asked.

“No,” everyone answered.

He turned to Keith. “Are you okay?”

Keith, for the first time this mission, looked at Shiro and nodded curtly. “Yeah, I’m alright.”

Shiro nodded back. He stood straight, leaving a hand on the back of Keith’s chair for balance and security. “Remember, people. This is a dangerous and unpredictable area, so you need to look alive.”

The team answered, “Right.”

Right then, Allura’s voice trilled in their helmets. “Paladins, what happened? We heard screaming.”

“It was nothing, Princess,” Shiro answered quickly. “What’s our ETA?”

“You should reach your destination within the next five doboshes,” Coran answered. “I’m uploading approximate coordinates for the origin site of the distress signal. It’s not specific enough to get you to its exact location, but they should bring you close enough so that you’re not looking for a trimmerell hair in horde of snorlotts.”

“Thanks,” Shiro said. “We’ll make contact when we land.”

“Very good,” Allura said. “Let us know if nothing else happens again.”

A few ticks later, a familiar blue arrow appeared on the Red Lion’s screen. Shiro breathed deeply through his nose. “Hopefully we can find what we’re looking for and get out.”

“Hope so,” Keith agreed. “So…last night…”

Shiro’s eyebrows tipped down into an angry furrow. “Now is not the time, Keith,” he said, irritated.

“But you will talk about it?” Keith asked, a hint of desperation lacing through his request.

Shiro licked his lips. He wanted to tell Keith, _Yes, of course_. He wanted to soothe his oldest friend’s — his whole team’s — concerns, but what could he tell them? He wasn’t find, not if the last two minutes meant anything. What good would it be to tell them, though?

He took a deep breath. “Yes,” he said. “I promise I will.” In time, he didn’t add. Yes, when he had figured things out. When he stopped feeling so light-headed and far away whenever he wasn’t being touched. After he recovered from his potentially disastrous conversation with Lance, he’ll talk to Keith.

He watched Keith’s shoulders ease down and felt nauseous.

The Green Lion remained in the bottom left corner of the view screen, remaining a constant through the rest of the flight. They were fine. Everyone was fine. He reminded himself this constantly as they drifted down to the remote, burnt landscape.

~~~

The Lions flew low over the planet as they combed the area Coran had pointed them toward. They were vigilant of any irregularities in the landscape — whether they were natural or man-made — that could act as satellites or shelter. The nearby sun’s light only managed to cover half of the planet, leaving the far edges of the crater they were investigating shrouded in deep shadows. Shadows from the drifting remains passed over them, further obscuring their view and frequently forcing them to go back and reexamine the same area.

“This is boooooooooring!” Lance complained.

“You’re not even doing anything!” Pidge snapped back.

“Yeah, well,” Lance mumbled, “we’ve been over this ridge, like, three times. There’s nothing here!”

Shiro sighed. “We need to be absolutely sure there’s nothing in the area before we can move on,” he said. “We can’t risk leaving a survivor behind.”

“Yeah,” Keith said, “but what’re the chances that any survivors are even still alive? Couldn’t we be looking for bodies at this point?”

“That’s a possibility,” Shiro said. “We still need to take the chance to bring everyone to safety.”

Pidge sighed. “We’ve been flying over this area for a while,” she said. “Maybe it’d be a good idea to split up? We could cover more area that way.”

Shiro’s eyes roamed over the landscape. The slope they were covering lead into a ravine that was lit by the sun for as far as they could see. There were several large boulders — not large enough to hide an installation or encampment, but remarkably large for a barren, waterless planet — lined up in the center of the ravine. He followed the ravine as it dug deeper into the planet’s surface. It disappeared into shadow at the edge of the horizon, the walls too high to let the sun in any farther. He squinted and leaned forward.

“Keith, can you fit the Red Lion into the ravine?” he asked.

“I think so,” he said. “Why?”

“Follow it,” he ordered. “Pidge, follow us into the ravine. I think we’re close.”

They lowered into the ravine, their heads kept low so that their pale yellow headlights revealed a solid, flat, clear path that extended for untold miles. The lights brushed along the sheer walls, revealing shimmering silver ribbons threading through the dull, burnt earth. The farther they went, the more tapered the walls became and the closer the top of the walls came together. Shiro thought he could see definition in the walls just beneath the Lions’ feet; caches dug into the wall that disrupted the metal threading and had faded, crumbled bits of something else.

“Pal— ea— r—ch,” Allura’s cracking voice said over their communications system.

“Princess?” Shiro responded. The soft hum of status answered him. He tuned the channel and tried again and, when Allura still hadn’t answered him, he called out to the Green Lion, “Lance, Hunk, Pidge, can you read me?”

“We’re here,” Pidge responded. “I just lost contact with the Castle, though.”

“So did we,” Shiro said. “This planet’s composition must include a metal that disrupts radio frequencies.”

“Then how’d we receive the distress signal?” Hunk wondered aloud.

“Don’t know,” Pidge said, “but I bet you that if we can talk to each other, we might be able to better pinpoint the signal’s source.”

“We better find it soon,” Keith muttered. He was looking up at the sliver of natural light hundreds of meters above them. “I don’t know how we’ll get out of here if the ravine keeps closing like this.”

“Yeah,” Lance said. “Can Lions fly backwards?”

“Keith, Pidge, if we land the Lions here do you think you can turn them around?” Shiro asked.

“I think so,” Pidge answered.

“Won’t be a problem,” Keith said.

“Pidge,” Shiro asked, “have you been able to pinpoint the signal?”

“Yeah,” she said, “Seems we’re not too far from it, maybe just under fifty yards away.”

“Then let’s land and continue on foot,” Shiro said. “Keep your flashlights on full brightness and stay together. It’s dark and potentially very dangerous down here and I don’t want any of you getting lost.”

“Not sure if you’re the right person to be telling us that,” Lance muttered.

Shiro scowled. “You know I can still hear you, right?”

Lance’s line was very, very quiet and Hunk’s line was peaking with laughter. Shiro smiled and didn’t fight the small feeling of pride that bubbled in his chest.

~~~

The planet’s gravity reminded Shiro of how hard it had been to walk around on Kerberos when he and the Holts weren’t encumbered by large tools and equipment. They moved sluggishly, each of them worried to kick off too hard in case they went flying up to the ravine’s opening, like Lance had when they first got out of the Lions. Shiro jumped up and caught him, however, yanking on Lance’s foot and then holding him against his body. Lance was stiff when they landed and, though it was hard to tell through the visors and the blue LEDs that lit up the insides of their helmets, Shiro thought he was blushing as well. The inside of his own helmet became very warm which he distantly blamed on how close to the core they must be. In the end, they activated their jet packs and traveled the last fifty yards in a brisk few minutes.

It was clear, this close to the walls, that a crashing ship had caused the damage to the ravine walls. What had appeared to be faint, papery scraps were actually crumbled steel sheets ripped off the side of a vessel. Those torn sheets lead to wrenched and bent stabilizers and winglets wedged into the gouged walls. Thirty yards in they were finding a rudder, cracked ceramic tiles, engine parts, a fuel tank. Each piece became larger and more critical until, finally, they found the ship itself. It was about twice the size of one of the Castle’s pods with patches of poorly soldered metal sheets cover the holes in the hull and on the back. It was covered in dust and gravel with the occasional bloom of ice from one of the malformed seams.

“Wow,” Hunk whispered as he touched a warped seam, “someone actually tried to repair it.”

“Can you tell how long ago they may have tried?” Shiro asked.

Hunk shook his head. “It’s really old and not very neat. Best guess would be right after the original crash.”

Shiro looked over the ship. It looked impenetrable from this end, but if someone had come out to repair the hull there had to be an easy way in and out. “Look for a way in,” he said before jumping up and climbing onto the top of the ship.

The top of the fuselage appeared intact and the hull was still sound. He found a welded patch that may have been an escape hatch at one point but the shaky welder who had patched the back had gotten to this part of the ship. He walked to what he presumed to be the cockpit and found the nose buried deep into the wall and the windshield badly cracked. There wasn’t anyone in the cockpit itself; Shiro felt the tension around his throat lessen, allowing him to swallow more easily. He turned around and caught the top of Pidge’s helmet poking up above the side of the ship. She was wedged between the ship and the wall, a space just small enough for her to fit in, with her back pressed against the wall and her feet propping her against the ship.

Shiro looked over the side to see what she was inspecting. “Find something?”

“I think so,” Pidge said. She brushed the dust off of a raised portion of metal. The paint was partially peeled off and the right half had broken off, leaving only a gold cross and crown overlying a green and a red square. Pidge scanned the crest with her gauntlet. “I’ll check the computer back at the Castle to see if there are any matches,” she said. “It might tell us who landed here.”

“Good idea,” Shiro said.

“Hey!” Lance shouted.

“Lance,” Keith grumbled, “your mic is on. You don’t need to scream.”

“Whatever,” Lance muttered smugly. “I guess you don’t want to know what I found.”

“What’d you find man?” Hunk asked.

“And where did you find it?” Shiro asked.

“I think it’s a door,” Lance answered excitedly. “It looks liek a door, at least. And it’s not welded shut, so that’s something, right? I’m on the right side next to this, uh, symbol thingy.”

Shiro offered a hand to Pidge and pulled her up next to him. They hopped over to the other side of the ship where they found Hunk and Keith standing behind Lance. A similar crest, one that survived the crash, was just over Lance’s right shoulder. Shiro floated down next to him, causing Lance to hop a step away. The door he claimed to have found was another piece of sheet metal haphazardly soldered on to the ship. There were no hinges or a tracks or a frame or a door handle or any other indication that it might be a door or even something that could be moved.

“It looks like just another patch job,” Shiro said.

Lance propped his hands on his hips and gave Shiro a big, smug smile. “It may _look_ , but watch _this_.” He reached over and spun the crest upside down, revealed a recessed screen and miniature keyboard.

“Great job, Lance!” Hunk praised.

“Yeah,” Keith added.

Shiro frowned and stepped around Lance to take a closer look at the keyboard. There were signs of wear — certain keys more worn down and paint more chipped than others. He turned to look at the others. “It requires a password to open,” he said. “Would anyone like to take a crack at it?”

Lance jabbed a thumb toward the top of the ship. “Do we really need a password? I mean, we have Pidge.”

Right on cue, Pidge hopped off the ship and pushed past Lance. Shiro stepped away, giving her enough room to look. She studied it for a few long seconds before pressing four letters and hitting “Enter.”

The ship jolted. The sound of heavy rusty bolts unlocking echoed around them. A dusting of dirt and rock fell on top of them and Shiro shined his flashlight up to see if any larger rocks had fallen as well. There was a sliver of starlight just strong enough to peek through the almost solid canopy but feeble enough to not make it all of the way down to their level. The door clicked and creaked partially open, sliding down the ship’s body with a grating, ear-shattering screech until there was an entrance just large enough for a grown man to squeeze through.

“How’d you do that?” Lance asked, impressed as he pulled his hands away from his ears.

“Lucky guess,” Pidge said. She fit through the door and turned her flashlight on her friends. “You guys coming?” she asked.

One by one, Lance, Keith, Hunk, and Shiro fit through the little opening, with Hunk and Shiro having to turn sideway and hold their breath to fit through.

The inside of the ship was pitch black without their flashlights. The room they were in was small, just large enough for all five of them to fit. It was almost bare: there were no creature comforts, but overturned tools, part of an old astronaut’s uniform, and several blasters were scattered across the floor, and a door that, Shiro assumed, would lead to the front of the ship.

“It still has power,” Keith muttered, “but no lights?”

“It might be on reserves,” Shiro said. Though the windshield was cracked and the pressure was equal, which he always assumed to mean that there were no survivors. He could be wrong. He’s seen stranger things over the past year-and-some-change. He stepped up to the door and jiggled the handle. Tight, but not locked.

“I’m surprised it’s even in one piece after such a large crash,” Hunk said.

Shiro knocked on the door. When no one answered he pulled it open. It made a harsh grating sound similar to the other door, but it opened much more easily, slamming open with a strong tug to reveal a new room lit by a soft blue light. Shiro felt the others cram up at his back as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the ghostly lights being emitted from the far side of the room. The lights revealed the faint outline of another door, one that may have lead to the cockpit, and the vague shapes of clothing and cooking trash.

“Pidge,” he whispered, “can you scan for traps?”

“Just a moment,” she answered. She squeezed up beside him and held her lit gauntlet out to scan the room.

Shiro balled his fist. He felt his heartbeat in his temple and the room was starting to fade out of focus, drifting apart with the blue light at its heart. He grit his teeth and squinted, trying to force his vision back together. His hearts were out of synch and soon the room was drifting away from him, like he was victim to this weird gravity. Not now, he thought. Instinctively, he swung a hand back and grabbed whatever was in reach — another hand. He blinked. The room was drifting away. He could see the back of his head, the feeling of fingers around his becoming fainter and fainter. He closed his eyes. The fingers squeezed back tightly. He felt them slide up his arm to his shoulder and into his chest where their warmth massaged his heart, easing it back into a normal rhythm. He breathed. The blue light drew the room back into focus and his face flushed back to its normal color.

Pidge’s gauntlet powered down. “No traps detected.”

Shiro looked behind him. Lance gazed back at him, eyes soft and mouth invitingly open. Shiro’s face caught fire. He pulled his hand out of Lance’s and flexed his fingers, nearly missing the way Lance’s expression closed off and how he drew away. Shiro stepped into the room with Keith and Pidge pushing in behind him. He looked around and saw an old, bare mattress and a pile of ratty sheets jammed into a corner. There were chests pushed into another corner, nearer to the machine than the bed.

“Hey, guys, look,” Hunk said with a nervous laugh. He held up an oddly-shaped black rock. “Someone made a mouse sculpture.”

“That’s not a mouse,” Lance argued. “It doesn’t even have a tail.”

“Well it could have broken off,” Hunk said. “Mice tails are really fragile, you should know that by now, Lance.”

“That happened once!”

“Guys,” Keith whispered, shocked. He was standing by the machine, the blue light disrupted by his hand lying on it source. “I…I think there’s a person in here.”

Shiro joined Keith by the machine. The screen emitting the blue light was actually a window showing the inside of the pod. A young, blond woman lay soundly asleep in the machine with her hands crossed over her chest. He couldn’t tell if she was breathing, but he could hear the low whir of the machine’s power and feel a soft hum in the floor beneath him.

“She must still be alive,” Shiro said.

“She?” Lance said before leaping over to the side of the machine. The way it lit his face, Shiro could see the way he blushed and how his eyebrows perked up as he took in the woman’s pale, peaceful face. “She’s beautiful,” he said.

Shiro dragged his eyes away. “Pidge, is there a way for you to run a diagnostic on this machine?”

“Probably,” she said, now standing at the foot of the machine. “I’d need access to the ship’s computer, though, and that doesn’t seem to be in here.”

“It might be in the cockpit,” Shiro said. “I’ll help you get in there if you have trouble with the door.” He turned to Keith. “Keith, I want you to take Hunk back to the Castle and get the Yellow Lion. We’ll need to dig down here in order to pull her out. Let Allura and Coran know what we found and why our radios cut out when they did.”

“On it,” Keith said. He waved at Hunk. “Let’s go.”

Finally, Shiro turned to Lance, still staring at the woman’s face. “Lance,” he barked.

Lance shook his head and looked up. “Yes?” he squeaked.

“Stop drooling.”

He heard Pidge snicker behind him and saw Keith’s sharp, pleased sneer as he left with Hunk. He watched Lance’s arms cross over his chest and pout and felt nothing but a tumult of anger shake his stomach.

~~~

Shiro sat down next to Pidge in the cockpit. Her gauntlet was hooked to the console with a short black wire he didn’t know she had brought with her. He fingers were flying over the fuzzy blue holoscreen, tapping wildly and with a specific, unknown purpose. Shiro watched the figures flash by — here one second, gone a half second later — before he asked, “What’s the status?”

“This system is old,” Pidge grumbled.

“The Castle’s pretty old,” he said with a smile, “and you work pretty well with that.”

“Yeah,” Pidge said, “but this is _old_. It may be older than the Castle.” She pulled at the cord connected to her gauntlet. “I had to find an actual link cable to get into it. Isn’t everything in space supposed to be super advanced or something?” She leaned back. “The crash may have also wrecked part of the computer, too, because a lot of the information I’m finding it incomplete.”

“What can you find?” Shiro asked.

Pidge paused her typing. She waved her hand over the holoscreen until she stopped on a rough graphic of the the machine. “I found the specs on the life support machine. It’s not too different from the med pods back in the Castle. I almost want to call it a prototype.”

“Could it just be a similar design?” Shiro asked.

“Maybe,” Pidge said unconvincingly. She tapped twice on the picture, blowing it up on the screen. Lines and arrows pointing to various parts of the pod were drawn across the screen while Altean words scrolled next to them. “It’s still operational. Most of the ship’s power is being diverted to it, so that’s why the lights and gravity are off.” She tapped the picture again. The holoscreen changed, loading a line sketch of the unconscious woman. “Her brain function and heartbeat are stable and they have been for a while. It’s like she’s sleeping.”

“Do you think it’s safe for her to be taken out of the pod?” Shiro asked.

“That would be your call,” Pidge answered. “If the pod is the only thing keeping her alive right now, I don’t think it’d be worth it to risk her safety before we get back to the Castle.” Pidge swiped her hand over the screen, returning to the schematic of the pod. “Thankfully, the pod looks detachable. As long as we’re okay with knocking down some walls, we can get the pod out and into the Yellow Lion without a problem. We could maybe even hook it up to the Yellow Lion’s power source in case it needs to be changed.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Shiro said. “Keith just got back. He said that Hunk was looking for a good place to start digging when he left. It shouldn’t take more than half an hour before we start moving again.”

“Awesome,” Pidge said. She swiped back to the screen with the flashing figures. “I’ll download the rest of the information on the computer and decode it back at the Castle.”

“Great work, Pidge,” Shiro said. He stood up and started to turn away. “I’ll let the others know what you found.”

“Before you go,” Pidge said quickly. He turned around to see her facing him, worry pulling at the corners of her eyes. “We’re still doing that ‘we’re a team, so no secrets’ thing, right?”

Shiro hesitated. He could hear Lance and Keith bickering just beyond the cockpit door. “Yes, of course,” he said kindly. “Is there something you want to talk about?”

Pidge looked over him twice before looking away, expression strained and uncomfortable as she said, “Yeah, so, Lance told Hunk and I about what happened last night. Between you two.”

Shiro thought he could hear his stomach drop through the floor like a fifty ton weight. He swallowed and sat down, suddenly dizzy and pale. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Pidge drawled. “I normally wouldn’t say anything since it’s none of my business and Lance already told us way, _way_ too much, but I definitely saw you grab his hand earlier and everyone saw how you got angry with him after his incident with the comatose girl. Which, in your defense, it’s pretty weird to be commenting on how pretty an unconscious woman is, but you also haven’t snapped at him about flirting in months so it was…weird, I guess.”

Shiro groaned and cupped his head.

“And, again, I wouldn’t say anything because I don’t care what you two do with each other as long as everyone’s happy,” Pidge continued, “but if this is going to be serious—”

“It’s not,” Shiro swore quickly. “I—” He closed his eyes and took a deep, cleansing breath. “Thank you for telling me, Pidge,” he said tightly. “What happened last night between Lance and I is private and I don’t appreciate him bragging about it. We’re going to have a serious talk about it when we get back to the Castle. Right now we have a delicate mission and we can’t risk getting distracted.”

Pidge blinked, eyes skittering away in her hesitation. “I wouldn’t have called it bragging,” she said, tone dangerously close to sounding apologetic. “Talking to him is a good idea. And you should do it as soon as possible. I don’t know how long we’ll be able to keep this from Keith and I _don’t_ want to see how he reacts. Especially if he finds out from someone other than you.”

Shiro wondered what difference it would make. Keith may not blow up at him like he would someone else, but that anger was going to boil and cannibalize and find its way out at some other time. Maybe it’ll burst, quick and sloppy, in a tense moment with Lance. Maybe it’ll simmer and seethe; it’ll start as a breach of trust and grown and rot into a team-rending hate. Pidge was right, though. Telling Keith was inevitable. He had the right to know what the rest of the team already knew, regardless of the fallout.

He stood up again. That would come later. Right now he needed to keep an eye out for Hunk and start detaching the med pod from the rest of the ship.

~~~

According to Pidge, the power source for the med pod was an internal battery that stored energy created by running electricity through a resource called “charcoal.” Depending on how much power was stored in the battery, it was within reason to get the pod out of the ship, onto the Yellow Lion, and back up to the Castle before they needed to plug it back into a power source. Which was great, she pointed out, because the only other source they would have in the time between detaching the pod and getting the woman out of it and into a more stable med pod would be the Yellow Lion and who knows if the tech for both would be compatible.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Lance asked.

Pidge gestured dramatically to the med pod. “It’s _so old_!” she exclaimed.

Shiro turned to Keith. “What did Allura say about the transfer?”

“She’s concerned,” he answered, “but she’s okay with it if it means saving someone’s life.” Shiro followed Keith’s eyeline back to the lit-up window. The tip of the woman’s nose was just visible over the thick steel frame. Lance was handing by her side, having barely moved since he had personally assigned himself the woman’s guard while the rest of them were planning how to safely remove her from the ship. Shiro thought he could hear Keith growl, but his own mind was caught in a hissing tumult that threatened to split the room in two again, so he asked Keith to help him knock down the back walls of the ship.

When Hunk returned, the walls had been cut down and Pidge had cajoled Lance into helping them loosen the base of his comatose girlfriend’s med pod.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Lance insisted. His eyes flashed over to Shiro for a moment before he smirked and cocked a hip out. “Not yet at least.”

“Whatever,” Pidge grumbled. “Hunk, I’m going to send the schematics to you,” she continued as she swiped the digital blueprints in his direction. Hunk’s gauntlet _ping_ ed and he opened the picture. “Anything stick out to you as something we should avoid touching.”

“Not really,” Hunk said. He rubbed the side of his helmet. “This gravity will make it easier for us, but the total mass of the components might make it too much for us to push to the Yellow Lion and it’s _definitely_ going to be too heavy for us to lift and carry. If it comes to it we could have Yellow drag her out, but then we’d need to be able to maneuver her into a secure position in her mouth.”

“Did you bring any cables with you?” Shiro asked. “Something to tie the pod down with?”

“Yeah, I grabbed them when I was up in the Castle,” Hunk said. “Including one that might be long enough to reach from Yellow to the pod.”

“We’ll see how easy it is for us to move the pod once it’s free,” Shiro said. “We’ll hook a cable to Yellow and drag her out if she’s too heavy. There might be an emergency hatch in Yellow that we can access from the outside that we can use to leverage her in.”

“I’ve never seen one on Yellow before,” Hunk said.

Shiro half-smirked. “Maybe,” he said, “but these Lions are full of surprises.”

They unsecured the pod from the floor and Hunk tied a cable to loop on the bottom of the pod. He tugged on the cabled a few times and then gave the rest of the team a thumbs-up. With him and Shiro pushing and Kieth, Lance, and Pidge pulling on the cable, they dislodged the pod from its rig. It thudded onto the floor and the remaining walls shuddered around them like a tin shack in a strong breeze. Shiro looked around. Did they cut down any vital structural supports when they made a hole in the back of the ship? He saw his teammates’ concerned faces and eyes flashing around the ship. He briefly caught Lance’s gaze and felt frozen by the worry he saw. Then Lance pushed it away, expression wiped clean with a smirk and and a quick nod, bearing his feet and hips down, ready to pull. Shiro tucked his head down, buoyed by a sudden flush of heat.

They reached the Yellow Lion soon enough. Hunk broke away to get into his cockpit, calling to them a few minutes later, “‘Kay guys, I’m all set here. Give me a shout if you need a lift.”

Shiro waved for Keith to come join him in the back. With them in the back and Lance and Pidge still pulling, they got the pod halfway up the gangway before it began to slip and fall backwards.

“What are you two doing up there?” Keith hissed.

“Pulling!” Lance said strenuously.

“Pull harder!” Keith demanded.

“ _You_ pull harder,” Lance snapped.

“Hunk,” Shiro called, “we need some help, buddy.”

“No problem,” Hunk said. “Hold on tight.”

The Lion jointed. Shiro thought he heard Pidge stumble and fall, but when he looked he saw Lance steadying her with an arm around her waist. As smoothly and as gently as he thought Hunk could manage, the Lion’s head rose from its low position, straightening its head in mid-air as it rose dozens upon dozens of feet in the air. They jerked back and forth on the gangway; Keith grabbed Shiro’s shoulder, using his tenuous balance to keep himself up. Pidge ended up with her arms around Lance’s chest, shuddering as she determinedly kept her chin high. Once the gangway was horizontal it sunk into Yellow’s mouth, carrying the team into his dark, open maw before closing behind them.

Muted yellow lights flickered on as Hunk’s voice was carried to them over an intercom. “Make it okay?”

Shiro looked around. He barely caught Pidge slapping Lance’s hands away from her and Keith’s stiff movement as he stretched his arms and back. “Yeah,” Shiro said, “everyone made it in safely.”

“Great!” Hunk said. “I’ll come meet you and help you tie the pod down.”

“Bring some extra cables,” Shiro said. “We might need more than what we have on hand.”

“On it,” Hunk said.

They found a pocket near Yellow’s back left molar that had enough structure to support and secure the med pod. In minutes the pod was tied down and they were confident that it wasn’t going to move or jostle.

“We’ll let you know once we’re back at the Red and Green Lions,” Shiro told Hunk. “Once we’re set to take off we’ll follow you out of the opening and give you cover in the debris field. If you run into any issues let us know immediately.”

“God it,” Hunk said with a nod.

Shiro turned to Lance and Pidge and continued with his instructions. “Keith and I will call the Castle while we’re in the air and give Coran and the Princess the chance to prepare the infirmary for our guest. Red and Green will flank Yellow and make sure its path is clear. We cannot let ourselves get distracted while we’re going back to the Castle.”

Land and Pidge nodded.

He nodded back. Hunk returned to the cock pit. The pod didn’t move as Hunk lowered them to the ground, tipped forward and opened to let them out.

As they jet packed back to the Red and Green Lions, Shiro felt a kernel of warmth form in his chest and pulse in tandem with his heart while his mind felt, for the first time in days, grounded and at home in his skull. He wasn’t being pulled away from anything. His attention wasn’t being diverted. Perhaps it was the adrenaline from a successful mission, but there was a welcoming feeling snowballing in his chest. He thought, as he stepped into place beside Keith and braced himself for take-off, that maybe things were going to turn out okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Come and chat with me on [Tumblr](http://bpp-fic.tumblr.com/) or [Tumblr](http://heroworshiplusten.tumblr.com/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/a_schoe).


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